The present invention relates to lighting systems that cast selective color lighting upon subjects in photography as encompassed by both digital and photochemical processes, and in both still and motion pictures.
Lighting equipment has evolved over the 150 years from using sunlight outdoors and gas flames indoors to where it is today with robust mix technologies including LED, tungsten filament, metal halide (HMI) and sunlight. As is well known in the art, the lighting emitting from these sources may be aimed directly at the subject, softened with a diffusion material, or reflected off of a bounce source.
The primary goal of all of these technologies is to provide a standard “white” source of illumination for photographic subjects. The result is that the subjects appear to have been photographed in a white-walled room. In fact, it has been undesirable to have anything other than a uniform white soft source of lighting for the last 30 years. While there are color-correction filters that are used on lighting sources, the use of filters still offer only uniform illumination sources.
Photochemical capture technologies (including conventional film) tend to be more forgiving and the uniform lighting techniques that have developed up to this point have resulted in acceptable and “natural-looking” results. The demise of film capture and the proliferation of digital capture, however, have created a need for different lighting tools to achieve “natural-looking” results. Digital photography is notoriously unforgiving and many in the photographic and filming arts complain about its harsh, artificial look that tends to accentuate the flaws of the subject. For example, while existing reflection boards and materials are extensively used as fill light in outdoor photography, they tend to make the subject look “artificially lit.” Additionally, in digital photography, flaws in the skin tend to be emphasized using these types of reflectors; this is undesirable as the goal in most photography is to render the subject with flattering results.
As a consequence, digital capture has revealed a paradox in traditional lighting—how can you photograph a subject in the real world (with many colors) when the only lighting source uses white sources? In nature there is rarely a uniform light source, therefore there is an inherent problem in photographing subjects using only uniform white soft sources. At the same time, undesirable results will be achieved if random colors are thrown at the subject. The result is a false representation of the subject and draws attention to the lighting techniques themselves.
While there are specialized lighting systems in use on high budget motion picture stages that mimic the colors of a moving environment by using playback of an environment on large screens to create the effect of passing through a specific environment, such technology is typically far beyond the scope of the average photographer/cinematographer. As a consequence, the substantial majority of photographers and cinematographers have no alternatives in terms of accessible lighting systems that can address the shortcomings mentioned above with the use of white lighting sources and the undesirable effect such white lighting sources have, particularly with respect to digital photography and filming.
There is thus a need in the photography and cinematography arts for a lighting system that creates a natural look that mimics the ambient light of natural surroundings that can be captured digitally. There is likewise a need in such arts for a lighting system that can be readily substituted for white light sources that is of simple construction, easy to deploy and exceptionally low cost that can be readily integrated for use with existing digital photography and cinematography equipment.